Critic’s Appreciation: David Lynch, a Visionary Director Who Spoke to Our Darker Selves

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Few artists create work so groundbreaking that their last name becomes an adjective to describe it. Such occurrences are exceptionally uncommon in Hollywood, where creativity – particularly the dark and disturbing kind – often takes a backseat to commercial success and financial gain.

Despite the fact that David Lynch, who sadly passed away at the age of 78 on Thursday, was known for directing a groundbreaking collection of films that can only be described as ‘Lynchian’. This was during a period when the American film industry was expanding and eventually becoming a franchise-focused giant, where Lynch’s unconventional work was not in demand by the studios.

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David Lynch, who died at 78 on Thursday, is renowned for directing a revolutionary series of films that can only be labeled as ‘Lynchian’. This was during a time when the American movie industry was evolving into a franchise-dominated colossus, where his quirky style was not favored by studios.

Lynch’s first movie, titled Eraserhead, was launched in 1977 – the same year as the premiere of Star Wars. Interestingly enough, both films were box office successes. The Lucas film quickly became one of the earliest summer blockbusters, setting a trend for today’s dominant movie industry. On the other hand, Lynch’s captivating black-and-white production, initially developed as a student project at AFI, was a massive hit on the midnight screening circuit. It generated $7 million in revenue despite being made on a meager budget of just $100,000, which came from grants and contributions by friends.

Eraserhead, in its enigmatic and avant-garde nature, left many critics at a loss during its initial release. Variety labeled it as a “disgusting exercise of bad taste,” while The New York Times remarked that it was “not particularly terrifying; rather, it’s endlessly long.” However, the unique and unusual nature of Eraserhead attracted audiences. Unlike traditional films with narratives or characters who speak, this movie presented a screaming mutant baby, a man with hair reminiscent of Frankenstein’s bride, numerous gruesome close-ups, and innovative sound design.

It seemed like Lynch was accessing a hidden desire, a strange and unsettling reality lurking beneath the surface, just waiting for an artist as imaginative as he was to bring it out. In essence, “Lynchian” could be described as stripping away the masks and falsehoods of supposed ordinary life and cinema, exposing something that resonates with our hidden, darker side.

The initial time I delved into Lynch’s world left a striking impact on me. As a teenager, I had exhausted every horror and action movie at my local video rental store. On a whim, I decided to give Blue Velvet, an unfamiliar film, a try. Upon returning home, I inserted the tape into my VCR, assuming it was just another high school flick for the first few minutes. However, things soon took an unexpected turn. A severed ear, crawling with ants, was found in the bushes. The characters seemed to converse in ways that were far from natural, as if they were merely pretending to be ordinary people.

When I reached the part where Kyle MacLachlan concealed himself in a wardrobe to spy on Isabella Rossellini, unexpectedly witnessing Dennis Hopper don an oxygen mask and shout “Baby wants to fuck!”, it’s safe to say that my 12-year-old self underwent a dramatic change. Once more, David Lynch was peeling back the facade of everyday life – in this instance, small-town America – to expose its deceit. The idyllic suburbs we were brought up in, or had seen on ‘Leave It to Beaver’, concealed something profoundly unsettling: repressed or unspoken sexual desires lurking within us, or camouflaged behind the idealized families depicted on TV.

In a second instance, I came across the Lynchian style of storytelling on television. Initially, it appeared ordinary, but soon enough, it derailed and spiraled into an uncanny, chaotic world. This experience took place when I was visiting my grandmother in Florida during spring break in 1990. The first episode of Twin Peaks was airing on a Sunday night, and we were both eager to watch the premiere of ABC’s new series, having heard much promotion for it. However, by the time the two-hour episode ended, I felt self-conscious even glancing at my grandmother. We had just witnessed something bizarre – what on earth was that? Why was Kyle MacLachlan once more portraying a character who seemed to constantly encounter absurd events? And, of course, who murdered Laura Palmer?

The following week, I returned home to New York, feeling confident that my grandmother would persist in watching ‘Twin Peaks’ until the very end, much like myself. With Lynch at the helm, he had completely altered my reality through a new medium. He skillfully flipped a seemingly ordinary small-town crime story upside down and inside out, revealing its complex core to the entire nation.

Through “Twin Peaks,” Lynch didn’t just expose the hidden darkness and peculiarity lurking beneath the ordinary American scenes. He demonstrated how these very same scenes were constructed and perpetuated, even by the prime-time series he was reshaping every Thursday on ABC. This could be another interpretation of what is “Lynchian”: the distortion of common genres and motifs, like a typical TV murder mystery, until they dissolve, revealing something more ominous and unsettling – something that a TV show was never intended to express.

Contrary to numerous books, essays, film school lectures, and podcasts discussing his work, Lynch rarely espoused grand theories about the creations he produced; instead, he simply made things whenever opportunity presented itself. This versatile artist worked across various mediums, including films, television, music, transcendental meditation, weather reports on his website, but painting and fine arts were his most constant pursuits. The 2016 documentary, David Lynch: The Art Life, offers a rare insight into the creative process of this plastic artist. Despite attempts to find deeper meaning in his work, particularly his iconic films, Lynch remained focused on his craft, persevering even as he faced mounting challenges within Hollywood.

The climax of this ongoing battle – between a renowned artist and the mainstream film industry he was consistently evading – reached its peak with his 2001 masterwork, “Mulholland Drive.” Originally intended as an ABC series, the project was scrapped by the network during pre-production (it’s said that this decision was made due to David Lynch’s insistence on keeping a close-up of feces in the final edit). However, additional filming transformed it into one of the most powerful anti-Hollywood movies ever created. In “Mulholland Drive,” Lynch’s distinctive style and narrative seamlessly blend, creating a tale that captures the allure of Tinseltown dreams gradually slipping into nightmares.

Right from the beginning, a dance routine synchronized with Linda Scott’s pop song “I Told Every Little Star” takes an unexpected twist, transforming into a colorful whirl of distortion. (Lynch often played with popular hits from the ’60s: Note the captivating lip-sync performance of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams,” skillfully executed by Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet).

After that, the narrative of Mulholland Drive shifts for about five minutes into what initially seems like a conventional tale about a promising young actress (portrayed by Naomi Watts in an outstanding role) attempting to make it big in L.A. However, events begin to unravel so rapidly and plunge into the enigmatic that the storyline of the aspiring actress serves as yet another veneer Lynch dismantles. He isn’t merely satirizing Hollywood and its star machine – he’s inviting us to ponder whether beneath this system lies a realm where identities dissolve and merge.

Despite the weighty and ominous tone that pervades much of David Lynch’s work, it’s essential to remember that his films, much like him, were often laced with a dry, witty sort of humor. This humor served to counterbalance some of the darkness inherent in his creations. What many viewers and critics saw as grotesque might have struck Lynch as comical. In an influential essay about the production of Lost Highway, titled “David Lynch Keeps His Head”, David Foster Wallace provided a succinct definition of Lynch’s humor and irony: “An academic definition of Lynchian could be that it refers to a specific kind of irony where the extremely macabre and the utterly ordinary coexist in such a way as to expose the former’s constant presence within the latter.” However, like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those terms that can only truly be defined by example, as we recognize it when we encounter it.

Lost Highway is a film that carries such a distinct Lynchian vibe at times that it borders on self-parody. Yet, when I watched it for the first time in 1997, I was on the verge of leaving the theater due to an incredibly disturbed Robert Blake chasing after the screen with a video camera. Even the opening credits, where Angelo Badalamenti’s pulsating music accompanies a shot of a dark highway, felt both ironic and unsettling, as if the director was subtly mocking the genre of road movies while trying to genuinely frighten us.

As time passes, films by David Lynch that have not received much love, like “Inland Empire”, “The Straight Story”, and the 1984 version of “Dune”, may undergo reevaluation. The same applies to the third season of “Twin Peaks” from 2017, which was highly acclaimed but largely overlooked by audiences. This season featured sequences that were among the most puzzling ever seen on TV, containing distinctly Lynchian scenes that could leave viewers both awestruck and bewildered.

Twin Peaks: The Return marked the director’s final comprehensive masterpiece, although he went on to create shorts and other projects until his passing. Interestingly, his first and last major film role was unexpectedly in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 drama, The Fabelmans, where he made a cameo as the iconic Hollywood figure John Ford in the closing scene.

It might appear as a strange contradiction to cast David Lynch as Henry Ford, given their stark differences in artistic approach and subject matter. While Ford is renowned for his grand visual landscapes, free-flowing poetic narratives, and intense emotions – elements that are almost polar opposites of Lynch’s style – they both possess a distinct, innovative flair that warrants the term “Fordian” to describe it. Remarkably, although Lynch never won an Oscar for his work, he was honored with one in 2019, much like Ford who has amassed numerous awards over the years.

As a devoted admirer, if Lynchian signifies the pinnacle of classic Hollywood style twisted into something fresh and unconventional by today’s blockbusters, then Fordian represents the epitome of that era’s elegance and grace. While some may view David Lynch as an avant-garde director, he will undeniably earn a place among the great American filmmakers of our time – a visionary whose unique style is as distinctive as his name itself.

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2025-01-17 06:25